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The 2012 Muriel Awards

Feb 242013

For a cinephile, 2012 was a pretty great year. American filmmakers began to show a creative vitality that many thought was on a permanent wane, world filmmakers stepped up their game to present a variety of visions that not only dazzled the eyes, but stirred the soul, and documentarians had a remarkable year in putting forth a battery of thought-provoking pictures of the true state of mankind’s affairs. There was a lot to watch, a enormity to feel, and a tremendous amount of self-reflection.

But, even in the world of cinema, a year must come to an end, and that means an traditional onslaught of awards ceremonies and “Best of…” lists wherein a multitude of critics – both professional and amateur – drive themselves to the brink of madness trying to narrow down a list of thousands of movies seen, to a more easily digestible, and consumer friendly format.

One such tradition is the annual Muriel Awards, created by Paul Clark and Steve Carlson as an online celebration of not only the best films, performances, and technical achievements, but also a look back at the past to see how certain films are withstanding the test of critical time. As Paul puts it:

The intent was to assemble a ragtag band of scattered cinephiles in order to recognize noteworthy achievements from the previous year in cinema, unswayed by awards-season hype. Plus we just thought it would be fun.

As for the name “The Muriel Awards,” it was inspired by Paul’s guinea pig, who is both temperamental and endlessly curious, two traits which are common to a lot of die-hard filmgoers.

This year, Paul Clark and Steve Carlson were kind enough to invite me to participate as a voter for the awards, and the results of the poll (along with my personal picks and a pair of companion pieces by yours truly):

http://murielcommunity.blogspot.com/

Stop by a take a look. Their science is tight, the writing is excellent, and the community is a hell of a place to hang out. If you love film as much as I do, you won’t be sorry.

Landon Coleman: The Greatest Teacher I Ever Had

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Jan 112013

Nostalgia has its pitfalls. Today I was thinking back on my college years, reminiscing on some of the teachers I was lucky enough to have met on my path to higher education, when a Google search result hit like a hammer to the chest:

OBITUARIES: Landon Coleman, master playwright.

He was only 50 years old. Continue reading »

Uncorking the Outrage

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Dec 012010

“We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.” ~~ John F. Kennedy

America has lost its fucking mind. The “land of the free, and the home of the brave” has been reduced to a quivering nation of paranoid loons too easily manipulated by a government so far under the thumbs of a military industrial complex its a wonder they don’t just call it a day and don the uniforms. Convinced that fear is the new currency, our government has convinced us to shut the lights in the “City on the Hill” and cower behind the curtains like frightened mice. Setting aside the probability that we’re far more likely to be struck by a meteorite than killed by a terrorist, we bow our heads and shuffle silently forward like the voiceless workers in Fritz Lang’s Metropolis – trudging tirelessly to the machines without so much as hot babe lead us to revolution. Told by our leaders that truth is subservient to “national security,” we bow down to take an eraser to the U.S. Constitution because, God forbid, we be forced to face up to the embarrassment of our abject failure and remove our heads from our collective asses and deal with the REAL WORLD instead of this bipartisan fairy tale we currently call a democracy. A wise man once said, “The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself,” and boy, oh, boy was he ever correct. Continue reading »

First Post

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Mar 242010

Welcome to my little corner of the web. FAC8SGAPHFB5

While I’ve been a geek now for over twenty years, I had avoided establishing an online presence as I initially saw it as taking on a completely unnecessary extra burden. After all, if you spend all day staring at a computer monitor rearranging bits and bytes into coherence, why the hell would you want to do the same when you got home? And for free?

As time has gone by, though, my need to write has begun to overwhelm my reservations, and recent professional circumstances have placed me in a position where I am being encouraged to write more. So here we are.

This site will be, above all, a personal blog. I’ll be writing about whatever interest me at a given moment, which means a wide range of topics will be explored. Deep thoughts, social commentary, essays about movie and books, personal exploration, geek notes and analysis, and the occasional “writing experiment”. While I like to consider myself a fair commentator, I do have strong opinions and a flair for what one of my professors once called “linguistic ornamentation.” Translation: the language here will not always suitable for children.

My initial intent is to post at least once a week at a minimum, and I’m shooting for roughly 1000 words per essay. As the site is brand new, I’ll be leaving the commentary queues open and feedback is appreciated, even if it consist of a litany of “UR teh suXors!”. I’ve established many internet presences over the years, so I’ve also made it easy to find me on some of the other sites and services I lurk around. Anything posted here will be announced on multiple other social sites, so that readers may follow in their own preferred way. I’ll try my very best to respond to every direct message received, as long as time and tide allows.

One last thing, though: Comments should be civil. Spammers and outright jackassess will be smote with the ban-hammer, which has a physical counterpart named “Roger”.